


The Best Part of Breaking Up

by girl_wonder



Series: Barbie fic! [1]
Category: Barbie
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-03
Updated: 2009-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-04 03:35:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_wonder/pseuds/girl_wonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ken thinks that it's his hair.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Best Part of Breaking Up

**Author's Note:**

> So, yes. I am a bad, bad person. And also, apparently on crack.
> 
> But really [how could I not?](http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/living/2002596253_ken01.html)

Ken's been wondering if there's something wrong with his haircut. It's not as though he has changed it recently, it's the same haircut he's been getting since he and Barbie broke up. He uses Barbie's hairstylist, because the chairs are hot pink and fake blue and remind him of the years they spent in Malibu.

That was before she started the band, and definitely before Blaine. Back then it was simple, they'd drive out to the beach in his car and she'd tilt until her head almost touched his shoulder and then bend her head to a seventy degree angle so that it touched his shoulder.

After the band, she didn't have time for rides in his car, so he sold it to Tommy when Tommy got his learner's permit. After he crashed it into Skipper's baby-pink BMW, Tommy had towed the thing to a junk yard and sold it for forty dollars.

"Tommy," Ken said, finally. "Is there something wrong with my hair?"

"No," Tommy said, without looking up from the television. On the screen was the same workout tape that Ken had used when Barbie was on tour with the Sensations. He was pretty sure that he had a new television somewhere, but that one only showed a racing scene, and he was pretty bored of that one, too.

"You didn't even look," Ken complained.

Tommy turned his head around and smiled pleasantly at Ken. "There's nothing wrong with your hair, it's fine." Tommy turned his pleasant smile back to the workout scene.

Bending down to pick up the shoes that Tommy had left out, Ken realized that it had been weeks since he'd been shopping. By now, his clothing was probably out of style and that could not stand. He put on his new jacket.

As Ken was walking out the door to go to the new Super Mall that Midge had opened, Tommy said, "You know there's nothing wrong with being gay, right? It's a different decade from the one that you grew up in."

Smiling his disco room smile (so much different than his board room, no matter what Barbie said), Ken said, "I'm not gay."

Turning his head back to the television, Tommy said, in the surfer voice he picked up from Blaine, "whatever, man."

The mall was different from the one two years ago, because it replaced the ice cream parlor with a coffee shop. He ran into PJ and then had to help her stand back up. She was wearing the same aqua marine heels from the last time he'd seen her.

"You've been wearing the same shoes all this time?" He smiled his car salesman smile, because it was Barbie's friend, even if he was pretty sure they didn't talk anymore.

PJ smiled and flipped her hair awkwardly. "Well, all my shoes kept migrating to Barbie's closet. You know how that is. And, anyway, Francine was fine when I wore nothing."

Blinking, Ken tried the sympathetic waiter smile. "Francine? Barbie's cousin? I didn't know you two were roommates. Or nudists."

"Ken, we weren't nudists." PJ's smile was obvious about its artificiality, that must have been why they had stopped talking to her. Then again, usually he just talked to the friends that Barbie brought home, so maybe Barbie had stopped talking to her and he hadn't made an effort.

His smile fell to the doctor's serious smile and PJ suddenly looked concerned, even though she only had one smile. "Ken, do you want to get some coffee?"

It would serve Barbie right if he went out with her cousin's roommate, so Ken said, "Sure!"

They ordered coffee and it came immediately. He tipped the girl running the machine. "Thanks, Ken!"

Ken squinted, "Stacie?"

Her hair had been chopped unevenly, and she was wearing what looked like Barbie's old Air Force uniform. It looked good on her, and he felt old.

"I can't believe that you don't recognize me," Stacie said. "You practically raised me." She smiled her brave first day of school smile.

"I just haven't seen you in a long time," Ken said.

"Yeah, ever since Barbie got her new Frank Lloyd Wright LA mansion, she's only had Kelly around," Stacie twisted her arm so that it pointed towards the back room where Tutti and Tod were sitting on the floor, washing cups. "Even the twins are getting jealous. I think that they miss the pool."

A group of skater boys had come in and were standing in front of the counter. Ken twisted towards them and Stacie smiled her regretful graduating senior smile. "Customers, I gotta go, Ken. It was nice to see you."

Taking their cups carefully to the table that PJ had selected, he said, "I didn't know Stacie worked here."

PJ tilted her head, still smiling the same way, "How did you think she earned enough money to live?"

Shrugging, Ken said, "Tommy doesn't work. Aren't they the same age?"

Picking up the cup with two hands, PJ said, "Look, you support Tommy, right?" She waited for Ken to nod. "Barbie is playing house in her new mansion with Blaine and Kelly." She paused. "Haven't you ever realized that when Barbie stops paying attention to people they just go away?"

Ken smiled his eureka nuclear physicist smile. "Like you!"

Twisting her whole torso to stare at the Stacie, PJ smiled, "Yes, like me. People still live, but you just stop thinking about them." Turning back to him, PJ said, "You know that Francine and I spent all those years after Barbie living happily together in our shoebox apartment, right?"

"Together?" Ken looked down at his still full cup. "I'm really not gay," he said.

"Ken. You own as many outfits as Barbie. You noticed my shoes. Get over yourself." PJ put down her cup.

Ken stood and smiled his car salesman smile again. "It was nice seeing you again."

At home, Tommy had gone out again without leaving a note. Ken found the bottles from their old Malibu house, still unopened, so he opened one and sat down against the couch. After a while he picked up the phone. It wasn't his phone, it was a leftover from one of Barbie's houses or maybe it was from Barbie's early secretary days.

He dialed Barbie's new number, waiting for her answering machine because he still wasn't sure what he was going to say. Instead, Blaine picked up. "You've reached Barbie's chill pad. She's not here right now..." In the background, Barbie shrieked her surfer girl hang ten amused shriek.

Ken hung up and drank some more. The bottle was strangely light, so he kept drinking. After a few more hours, Tommy still wasn't back, so Ken called again.

Barbie answered, this time, "Hello?"

"Barbie? It's Ken," Ken used his telemarketer smile and his businessman voice in case she was confused.

"Ken? It's two in the morning," she was using her PhD Psychologist voice, and on the other end he heard her say softly, "no, it's just Ken."

"Was I bad in bed?" Ken was trying to use his regular voice, but it came out horse and kind of desperate.

He heard a door shut on her end of the phone. "No, you were fine in bed. That wasn't why we broke up."

"If I'd been better in bed, could we have stayed together?"

Over the line he heard her irritated sigh, the one from her days as Secretary of State. "Ken, really. We were together forever. It had nothing to do with how you were in bed. Blaine came along and I suddenly realized that I deserve to be more than your beard."

"My what?" Ken took another drink.

"Your beard. At least Blaine is open about his sexuality. It'll hurt me in the next presidential election, but I think that it's a new era," Barbie stopped. "You know, it's ok if you tell me that when I was on the road with the Sensations, you slept with Allan."

"I didn't!" Except for that time when Allan had said that he missed Midge and they were both really lonely and the bed at the beach house had just looked so empty. But they had only slept together, not Slept Together. He coughed. "Well, not really."

"Look Ken, you're nice and everything, but, really, we're over. I've got to go."

When he put the phone down, he thought about calling up Allan to ask if he counted that night, but he couldn't remember the number and he was also a little afraid that Midge would pick up.

Tommy came home, wearing what looked like Skipper's old school uniform. They both looked away and Ken smiled his comforting dentist smile. Tommy smiled his rebel motorcycle rider smile.

"I'm drunk," Ken offered. "I don't think I'll remember this in the morning."

"Yeah ok," Tommy said.

The next day, Ken went to work and brushed past Blaine on his way home. Blaine didn't have a job, as far as Ken knew.

Blaine stared at Ken's hair. "Ken, my man," he greeted.

"Hello, Blaine," Ken was still wearing his producer smile from work.

"So, Barbie said you called last night," Blaine was carrying a long surfboard under his arm, it dragged on the ground when he took long steps.

"I don't remember," Ken said.

"Really?" Blaine smiled his own waiter smile, the one that got Barbie to leave Ken. "You wanna share, my man?"

Ken shrugged and let Blaine follow him home. At the house, the bottle was still full and Ken pulled out the rest of the box of bottles. "These are from when Barbie and I were living in Malibu," he said.

If Blaine heard the insult, he ignored it. "Cool, man. Vintage."

After a few hours, Ken began to wonder why he hated Blaine, really. Barbie had always been gone anyway, either campaigning or flying and that one time that she had spent a few months in space, fixing the space station.

In fact, having his own place was a little bit of a blessing. Tommy got to use Barbie's old closet as his room and Ken didn't have to deal with all those pointy shoes.

"Hey, so Barbie says you're gay," Blaine said.

"I'm really not," Ken swallowed some more of his drink.

Then, Blaine was leaning over, his whole torso pressing against Ken's and their mouths just fit together. It was better than with Barbie, because when he pulled Blaine down on top of him, Blaine lay flat and could still kiss him, without having to tilt his head down over D-cup breasts.

The next morning, Blaine grabbed some toast and headed out before the paper was delivered. "Hey, that was fun. Later."

Ken was pretty sure that he didn't hate Blaine at all.


End file.
